CRIM LAW CASE DIGESTS

 LIANG VS. PEOPLE

 FACTS: Jeffrey Liang is an economist working in the Asian

Development Bank (ADB). Sometime in 1994, he was charged
before the Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) of Mandaluyong City
with two counts of grave oral defamation for allegedly uttering
defamatory words against fellow ADB worker Joyce Cabal.
Because of this, he was arrested, but then, he was able to post
bail, and so he was released from custody.
 The next day, the MTC judge received an “office of protocol”
from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) stating that Liang is
covered by immunity from legal process under Section 45 of the
Agreement between the ADB and the Philippine Government.
Because of this, the MTC judge dismissed the two criminal cases
without notice to the prosecution.
 The prosecution filed a Motion for Reconsideration but it was
denied. It then filed a Petition for Certiorari and Mandamus with
the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Pasig City. The latter set aside the
MTC ruling and ordered for an enforcement of a warrant of
arrest. Liang filed a MR but it was denied. Hence, this Petition for
Review.
 ISSUE: Whether or not Liang is covered by immunity under the
Agreement??? – NO.
 HELD: The immunity mentioned in Section 45 of the Agreement is
not absolute, but subject to the exception that the act was done
in an “official capacity.” Slandering a person could not possibly
be covered by the immunity agreement because our laws do
not allow the commission of a crime, such as defamation, in the
name of official duty. It is well-settled principle of law that a
public official may be liable in his personal private capacity for
whatever damage he may have caused by his act done with
malice or in bad faith or beyond the scope of his authority or
jurisdiction.
 Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a
diplomatic agent enjoys immunity from criminal jurisdiction of the
receiving state except in the case of an action relating to any
professional or commercial activity exercised by the diplomatic
agent in the receiving state outside his official functions. The
commission of a crime is not part of an official duty.
 CONCURRING OPINION, PUNO, J:
 The phrase “immunity from every form of legal process” as used
in the UN General Convention has been interpreted to mean
absolute immunity from a state’s jurisdiction to adjudicate or
enforce its law by legal process, and it is said that states have
not sought to restrict that immunity of the United Nations
by interpretation or amendment.
 On the other hand, international officials are governed by a
different rule. Section 18(a) of the General Convention on
Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations states that officials
of the United Nations shall be immune from legal process in
respect of words spoken or written and all acts performed by
them in their official capacity. The Convention on Specialized
Agencies carries exactly the same provision.
 The Charter of the ADB provides under Article 55(i) that officers
and employees of the bank shall be immune from legal process
with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity
except when the Bank waives immunity. Section 45 (a) of the
ADB Headquarters Agreement accords the same immunity to the
officers and staff of the bank. There can be no dispute that
international officials are entitled to immunity only with respect to
acts performed in their official capacity, unlike international
organizations which enjoy absolute immunity.
 Clearly, the most important immunity to an international official,
in the discharge of his international functions, is immunity from
local jurisdiction. There is no argument in doctrine or practice with
the principle that an international official is independent of the
jurisdiction of the local authorities for his official acts. Those acts
are not his, but are imputed to the organization, and without
waiver the local courts cannot hold him liable for them. In strict
law, it would seem that even the organization itself could have
no right to waive an official’s immunity for his official acts.
 This permits local authorities to assume jurisdiction over and
individual for an act which is not, in the wider sense of the term,
his act at all. It is the organization itself, as a juristic person, which
should waive its own immunity and appear in court, not the
individual, except insofar as he appears in the name of the
organization. Provisions for immunity from jurisdiction for official
acts appear, aside from the aforementioned treatises, in the
constitution of most modern international organizations. The
acceptance of the principle is sufficiently widespread to be
regarded as declaratory of international law.
KHOSROW MINUCHER V. CA AND
ARTHUR SCALZO
 Facts: Khosrow Minucher is an Iranian national who came to
study in the RP in 1974 and was appointed Labor Attaché
for the Iranian Embassies in Tokyo, Japan and Manila. When the
Shah (monarch title) of Iran was deposed, he became a refugee
and continued to stay as head of the Iranian National Resistance
Movement. Scalzo, on the other hand, was a special agent of
the US Drugs Enforcement Agency. He conducts surveillance
operations on suspected drug dealers in the Philippines believed
to be the source of prohibited drugs shipped to the US and make
the actual arrest.
 In May 1986, Minucher (and one Abbas Torabian) was charged
with for the violation of RA 6425 (Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972).
The criminal charge was followed by a “buy-bust operation”
conducted by the Philippine police narcotic agents in his house
where a quantity of heroin was said to have been seized. The
narcotic agents were accompanied by private respondent
Arthur Scalzo who became one of the principal witnesses for the
prosecution. They were acquitted.
 On 03 August 1988, Minucher filed a case before the RTC for
damages on account of what he claimed to have been
trumped-up charges of drug trafficking made by Arthur Scalzo.
According to Minucher, he and Scalzo conducted some
business. Minucher expressed his desire to obtain a US Visa for him
and his Abbas’s wife. Scalzo told him that he could help him for a
$2,000 fee per visa. After a series of business transactions
between the two, when Scalzo came to deliver the visas to
Minucher’s house, he told the latter that he would be leaving the
Philippines soon and requested him to come out of the house so
he can introduce him to his cousin waiting in the cab. To his
surprise, 30-40 armed Filipino soldiers came to arrest him.
 In his defense, Scalzo asserted his diplomatic immunity as
evidenced by a Diplomatic Note. He contended that the US
Government, pursuant to the Vienna Convention, recognized it
on Diplomatic Relations and the Philippine government itself thru
its Executive Department and DFA.The courts ruled in favor of
Scalzo on the ground that as a special agent of the US Drug
Enforcement Administration, he was entitled to diplomatic
immunity.
 RTC: decision in favor of plaintiff.
 CA: Reversed. Scalzo was sufficiently clothed with diplomatic
immunity pursuant to the terms of the Vienna Convention.
ISSUE: WON SCALZO IS ENTITLED TO
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY - YES.
 Ratio: The Vienna Convention lists the classes of heads of diplomatic
missions to include: (a) ambassadors or nuncios accredited to the
heads of state, (b) envoys, ministers or internuncios accredited to
the heads of states; and (c) charges d' affairs accredited to the
ministers of
 foreign affairs. Comprising the "staff of the (diplomatic)

 mission" are the diplomatic staff, the administrative staff and the
technical and service staff. Only the heads of missions, as well as
members of the diplomatic staff, excluding the members of the
administrative, technical and service staff of the mission, are
accorded diplomatic rank.
 Scalzo was an Assistant Attaché of the US diplomatic mission.
Attaches assist a chief of mission in his duties and are
administratively under him, but their main function is to
observe, analyze and interpret trends and developments in their
respective fields in the host country and submit reports to their
own ministries or departments in the home government. These
officials are not generally regarded as members of the
diplomatic mission, nor are they normally designated as having
diplomatic rank.
 While the diplomatic immunity of Scalzo might thus remain
contentious, it was sufficiently established that, indeed, he
worked for the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and was
tasked to conduct surveillance of suspected drugactivities within
the country on the dates pertinent to this case. If it should be
ascertained that Arthur Scalzo was acting well within his assigned
functions when he committed the acts alleged in the complaint,
the present controversy could then be resolved under the related
doctrine of State Immunity from Suit.
 The precept that a State cannot be sued in the courts of a foreign state is a
long-standing rule of customary international law. If the acts giving rise to a
suit are those of a foreign government done by its foreign agent, although
not necessarily a diplomatic personage, but acting in his official capacity,
the complaint could be barred by the immunity of the foreign sovereign
from suit without its consent. Suing a representative of a state is believed to
be, in effect, suing the state itself. The proscription is not accorded for the
benefit of an individual but for the State, in whose service he is, under the
maxim
 – par in parem, non habet imperium – that all states are sovereign equals
and cannot assert jurisdiction over one another. The implication is that if the
judgment against an official would require the state itself to perform an
affirmative act to satisfy the award, such as the appropriation of the amount
needed to pay the damages decreed against him, the suit must be
regarded as being against the state itself, although it has not been formally
impleaded.
 A foreign agent, operating within a territory, can be cloaked with immunity
from suit but only as long as it can be established that he is acting within the
directives of the sending state. The consent of the host state is an
indispensable requirement of basic courtesy between the two sovereigns.
The “buy-bust operation” and other such acts are indication that the
Philippine government has
 given its imprimatur, if not consent, to the activities within


 Philippine territory of agent Scalzo of the United States Drug Enforcement

Agency. In conducting surveillance activities on Minucher, later acting as
the poseur-buyer during the buy-bust operation, and then becoming a
principal witness in the criminal case against Minucher, Scalzo hardly can be
said to have acted beyond the scope of his official function or duties.